Yvon had been struck by accounts of the battle of Kouliokovo, an episode of Russian history during which the Muscovites conquered the Tartars in 1380 and established the base for their empire. He was able to realise his dreams of visiting the actual site, and made many studies from nature of scenes of Russian .life, such as Mosquée tartare Moscou (Tartar Mosque in Moscow) and Route de Sibérie tartare (Road in Tartar Siberia), shown at the 1847 and 1848 Salons. After working for three years on his painting entitled Bataille de Kouliokovo (Battle of Kuliokovo), he finally exhibited it in 1850. Although poorly received, it was eventually bought by the Czar of Russia. After painting Maréchal Ney la retraite de Russie (Marshal Ney Retreating from Russia), Yvon obtained a commission from the emperor to go to the Crimea. This undertaking resulted in three monumental paintings showing a victorious France, more to the taste of the French public. Now in the Versailles museum, they include La prise de la gorge de Malakoff (The Capture of Malakoff Gorge). It was probably during this journey that Yvon visited Turkey; he painted a number of Orientalist pictures, such as Une rue å Constantinople (Street in Constantinople), shown at the 1873 Salon.

Yvon continued to paint portraits and pictures devoted to literary, religions and allegorical subjects, although he returned to military painting at the time of the FrancoPrussian war. He became a professor at the School of Fine Arts and later at the Polytechnic School in Paris.