Roberts and Hay had been an apprentices collectively, and Hay had been seeing a mistress since his own wife had started drinking. Roberts may have burned some letters from this period in shame at his wife's drinking problem, but he was unusually frank in a letter to a buddy, David Ramsay Hay. J. M. W. Turner persuaded Roberts to abandon scene painting and commit himself to turning into a full-time artist. Through the second a part of the 1820s, and along with English and Scottish scenes, Roberts painted views of outstanding buildings in France and the Low Nations including Amiens, Caen, Dieppe, Rouen, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, generally making several paintings of the same scene with solely minor variations.

His paintings primarily based on this trip started to lay the foundation of his fame; considered one of them, a view of Rouen Cathedral, sold for eighty guineas. In 1824, he exhibited another view of Dryburgh Abbey at the British Institution and despatched two works to the primary exhibition of the newly formed Society of British Artists. In https://myhomelandng.com/ , the Society of British Artists elected him as their president. In London he made the acquaintance of artists comparable to Edward Thomas Daniell and John Linnell, who frequented Daniel's home. Commissions from Covent Backyard included the units for the London premiere of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in 1827, scenery for a pantomime depicting the naval victory of Navarino, and two panoramas that he executed jointly with Stanfield.

He sailed from Leith together with his spouse and their six-month-old Christine and settled in London. A miniature by Roberts from this time exhibits Margaret as a delicate lady with blonde ringlets, holding the smiling three-12 months-old Christine. In 1822 the Coburg Theatre, now the Outdated Vic in London, offered Roberts a job as a scenic designer and stage painter. After working for some time on the Coburg Theatre, Roberts moved to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to create dioramas and panoramas with Stanfield. At Stanfield's suggestion, Roberts also despatched three photos to the 1822 Exhibition of Works by Dwelling Artists, held in Edinburgh.