Background
Antoine was born in Calais, France. The date of birth is unknown.
Antoine was born in Calais, France. The date of birth is unknown.
During the Napoleonic wars Imbert became an officer in the French navy and on February 23, 1810, was serving as first lieutenant on the Prince Eugene, a privateer, when that vessel was captured off Dover by the British Royalist. He was confined as a prisoner at Chatham for more than four years, and during the tedium of this captivity devoted himself to drawing and painting.
He was released May 20, 1814, and came to New York about ten years later, perhaps on the same ship that brought Lafayette in 1824. At any rate the familiar "Landing of Gen. Lafayette at Castle Garden, New York, 16th August 1824" bears Imbert's name as the artist. It was a drawing which captured the popular fancy and came to be reproduced on every imaginable object of use from Staffordshire plates to Germantown handkerchiefs. Imbert's name appears in the New York Directory of 1825-26, as a "painter" at 146 Fulton St. In the two years that followed he had a "lithographic office" at 79 Murray St. This, says Dunlap, was "the first lithographic establishment (in New York) of which I have any knowledge" and was started "amidst many difficulties. "
It was Imbert who produced the lithographic drawings for Cadwallader D. Colden's Memoir Prepared at the Request of the Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York and Presented to the Mayor of the City at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals (1825), a copy of which was sent by the city government "as a tribute of respect to the Sovereign and People of Bavaria, " the birthplace of lithography. "The Principal Cities of the United States, Correctly Drawn on Stone" (1826 - 28) was never finished, but Stokes reproduces the view of the Branch Bank of the United States on Wall Street and lists eleven other New York views. A new Map of the United States, with the additional Territories on an improved Plan. Exhibiting a View of the Rockey Mountains surveyed by a Company of Winnebago Indians in 1828, from Imbert's establishment, is perhaps one of the earliest examples of the entrance into caricature of the lithographic art.
Imbert left a widow who in 1838 was keeping a boy's clothing shop on Canal Street.
Quotes from others about the person
Keyes calls Imbert "a man of special mark, for he was not only an artist but a publisher who contributed largely to the progress of lithography in this country".
Imbert had a wife.