The Erie Canal Celebration, New York, 1825
1825 -1826
Anthony Imbert (1794 -1834)
Oil on canvas, 24 x 45
Anonymous gift, 49.415.1

An event that had a profound influence on the economic development of nineteenth-century New York City was the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. This four-hundred-mile waterway, nicknamed "Clinton's ditch" because it was authorized and completed during the tenure of Dewitt Clinton (1769 -1828) as governor of the state, connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via New York Bay.¹ Hailed as a marvel of modern engineering, it facilitated the transportation of goods to new consumer markets in the Midwest and the retrieval of valuable raw materials from areas that had hitherto been difficult to access.

A triumphant celebration was held in New York City to commemorate the canal's official completion on November 4, 1825. An influx of nearly twenty thousand visitors gathered on the city's shoreline to watch an impressive aquatic display that featured a flotilla of watercraft parading through New York Harbor to greet the Seneca Chief, the first canal boat to travel the full span of the newly opened canal.

The Erie Canal Celebration, New York, 1825, is the earliest of three known oils by Imbert, a French émigré best known as one of America's pioneering lithographers. As a historical document, it is valuable in providing a visual record of an event that heralded New York City's ascendance as a center of national trade and finance. The artist chose to illustrate the conclusion of the day's festivities, when a fleet of American ships sailed in salute around the British ships of war Swallow (shown in the foreground) and Kingfisher (the sister vessel visible in the middle distance).² The location of the salute is documented by Imbert's inclusion of Fort Clinton and Governors Island on the horizon to the left. The artist took pains to indicate the densely built landmass of lower Manhattan, with the spire of Trinity Church the tallest in the skyline. The tonal values, spatial arrangement, and looming sky of the picture suggest the influence of Dutch marine painting. The gay colors of the ships' flags, together with the stylized quality and formality of the vessels and tiny figures arrayed throughout the canvas, lend the scene an almost Chinese character, recalling the paintings of Western clipper ships at Whampoa.

Imbert's study of drawing and painting had commenced as a pastime while he was a political prisoner in a British jail. Just how the newly transplanted former French naval officer secured a commission to supply thirty-seven graphic images of the canal festivities for the illustrated appendix to Colden's Memoir, the major historical publication commemorating them, is a matter of speculation.³ Possibly this painting was done to provide the committee with tangible proof of his professional qualifications as a marine artist.

Of the thirty-seven illustrations that Imbert contributed to Colden's Memoir, the chef d'oeuvre of the series is considered to be his two-sheet panoramic print entitled Grand Canal Celebration: View of the Fleet Preparing to Form in Line. This print, a version of which exists in the Print Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, has been viewed by scholars as a technical milestone in the pioneering art of American lithography.

After his acclaimed debut as the portrayer of the canal celebration for Colden's Memoir, Imbert embarked on an active career as a lithographic artist and publisher. Among the better-known works he issued was a series of New York City views derived from original designs by Alexander Jackson Davis (1803 - 1892). His productivity as a painter seems to have all but ceased after 1827, when he was listed in local directories exclusively as a lithographer.⁴

Notes:

1  The formidable task of digging the canal had deterred several generations of earlier planners. Clinton, however, had staked his political future on the possibility of realizing this massive project, and won election to the state governorship in 1816 based on his pro-canal platform. See Brooks McNamara's chapter "Openings and Dedications, 1825 -1864," in Day of Jubilee: The Great Age of Public Celebrations in New York, 1788 -1909 (New Brunwick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), pp. 84 -88.

2  The prominence of the British war vessels featured in Imbert's painting may explain its provenance. Before its purchase from a New York gallery and its subsequent donation to the Museum of the City of New York in 1949, the work had been owned by Colonel P. J. Bellamy, an English lieutenant whose family had long displayed the painting at their ancestral residence in Exmouth, Devonshire. The piece had passed to Bellamy in a direct line of descent from its original owner, Captain Thomas Baldcock, who had served as naval commander of the British ship of war Swallow, which occupies a prominent position in the composition. See Charles Allen Smart, "A Rare Historical Painting," Magazine Antiques (July 1931): 36 -37.

3  The formal title of Cadwallader Colden's history is Memoir Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council on New York and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals (New York: printed by order of the Corporation of New York, 1825).

4  The degree of Imbert's commercial success in the emerging graphic art field is questionable, however. Following his death, his widow, Mary, was obliged to earn her living as a purveyor of children's clothing and, later, of women's corsets, as indicated by her listing in New York City directories. See John Carbonell, "Anthony Imbert: New York's Pioneer Lithographer," in Prints and Printmakers of New York State, ed. David Tatham (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 11-41; and Harry T. Peters, America on Stone (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1931), pp. 228 -229.