Daumier worked alongside Balzac and Grandville on a comic journal, becoming close with Balzac, whose work he later illustrated. Delacroix admired him, and owned paintings by him. He stayed with Rousseau in Barbizon, and was friends with Gautier and Baudelaire. He worked with Manet, Courbet and Corot to improve official exhibition rules. Hugo organised a major exhibition of his drawings, paintings and sculptures; financially unsuccessful, it encouraged a younger generation. His lifelong friend Corot is said to have bought for Daumier the cottage in which, blind and impoverished, he lived out his last years, though the exact facts are disputed.