He was most notable for his Christian missionary work among the Koreans, he was appointed by Pope Gregory XVI in August 1836 when first Bishop Barthélemy Bruguière died in Manchuria.

Imbert was born at Marignane, to parents who were residents of the hamlet of Callas, in the commune of Cabriès in the Department of Bouches-du-Rhône.

[2] On 5 March 1819, Imbert was incardinated in the Archdiocese of Paris, and ordained on 18 December of that same year, having received an indult from the Holy See due to his not having reached the legal age.

Imbert's first stop was in Penang, Malaya, where he was asked to replace a teacher at the College General (Major Seminary), who had taken ill.

He taught there from April 1821 to January 1822 In 1821, Esprit-Marie-Joseph Florens, the Vicar Apostolic of Siam, requested for him to call at Singapore.

In February 1822, Imbert sailed for Macau, but unable to go directly there, he spent the next two years in Tonkin, French Indochina.

Accordingly, a religious statue of Imbert Bum is also enshrined at a side chapel of the Myeongdong Cathedral, where pious women have vested the image in the traditional Hanbok costume of South Korea.