Upon entering the small and softly lit Charrington Print Room, we learn that the tradition of caricature originated in Italy, where the verb ‘caricare’ means ‘to load’, and loaded with meaning does seem the most fitting way to describe the works of this unassuming yet highly comprehensive exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Displaying few more than thirty individual works, the exhibition nonetheless covers a range of caricatures, acknowledging the differing attitudes of the caricaturists, from the morally superior depiction of vice to baser scatological or bawdy illustrations.  Notable names, such as Max Beerbohm and George Cruikshank were well-represented and a nod given to contemporary cartoons by the inclusion of a couple of Glen Baxter’s recent works. James Gillray, often considered to be the father of the political cartoon, stole the show on many occasions, with illustrious favourites including ‘The Cow-Pock – or – the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!’ (1802), which satirises wide-spread fears about the introduction of vaccinations, and ‘Diana return’d from the chace’ (1802), which sends up Lady Salisbury, a renowned hunter, by comparing her to Diana, adding comically uncharacteristic bulk to the Roman goddess of the hunt.

I was initially sceptical about the invitation to reject the eighteenth-century notion that laughter is ‘unseemly’ and to “laugh as much as you like” however it must be said that as the exhibition began to fill up – a fact impressive in itself, considering that it has been running since mid-October – the odd snicker could certainly be heard. In an age where gifs and memes have replaced sketches and cartoons as the popular source of humour, it was refreshing to see that etchings and engravings, more than two hundred years past their supposed sell-by-date, do retain their capacity to entertain.

The focal point of the exhibition is a timeline of caricature, created by Robert Searle. Plotting the development of satirical drawings all the way from Hogarth to Private Eye, it includes major and minor artists with fascinating annotations; I discerned, for example, Searle’s musing that ‘good survives as works of art (& comment)’, “Bad survives as objects of historical interest”. It would be worth going to the museum to see this item alone.

Searle’s drawings are displayed in a room nearby and are certainly worth visiting too – the Cradled in Caricature exhibition is an accompaniment to a comprehensive showing of the Cambridge-born caricaturist’s work (Ronald Searle: Obsessed with Drawing). Interested in caricature from an early age, and said to have ‘haunted’ the museums of Cambridge as a student, Searle noted Cruikshank’s description of his own upbringing, working in the workshop of his father, who was also a leading caricaturist, as “cradled in caricature”.

While ‘cradled’ is not the first term that comes to mind to describe caricature’s  duplicitous embrace, it certainly is an apt title for this exhibition. There is a risk that exhibiting centuries-old caricature will place the visitors in the role of passive voyeurs, permitted to peep at a great tradition with little understanding of the works themselves. Yet, here, the choice of works locate us very much at the heart of the tradition, surrounded by caricature and lead us to understand it from the inside out.