James Gillray, French Liberty, British Slavery (1792). ©The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Click here to see a close-up

The French and English have a long-standing rivalry, sometimes friendly, and at other times, such as during the Napoleonic and Seven Years’ Wars, overtly hostile.

This rivalry has often manifested itself in stereotype and caricature, and the fluctuating political climate of the 18th and early 19th century produced a prolific output of satirical prints.

Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum is examining the stereotypes as they developed in this period with its exhibition Vive la Différence! The English and French Stereotype in Satirical Prints 1720-1815, running until August 5 2007.

The exhibition starts with William Hogarth’s O The Roast Beef of Old England (1748-49), which was published during the build up of hostility before the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War.

Anonymous British (1771, after SH Grimm), The French Lady in London, or Head Dress for the Year 1771. Courtesy Fitzwilliam Museum

It established the much-copied stereotype of the Frenchman as poverty-stricken and foppish, put upon by a despotic regime.

The satire becomes gentler with the prints on show from the 1760s onwards, where mutual incredulity of differences in dress and hairstyle replace the overt contempt of some of Hogarth’s work.

By the time of the French Revolution from 1789 attitudes had changed again as reflected in the caricatures of satirists like James Gillray and Richard Newton.

The French satirists of the early 1800s were undoubtedly aware of their English counterparts but followed a very different style to them. Their work is characterised by pared down forms against plain backgrounds and a lack of factual content.

Anonymous French, Trait de Sensibilité (after 1815). Courtesy Fitzwilliam Museum

English satirical prints were often crammed with factual details but the anonymous French caricaturists instead contrasted elegant images of Parisians next to distorted figures of the English.

Their prints attempt to portray imagined aspects of the English character, such as violence in the form of street boxing, boredom, represented by silent gatherings of women, drunkenness and the ‘English Malady’, a morbid streak that the French were convinced would often result in suicide.

The exhibition highlights the appeal of this age-old rivalry for modern audiences and gives an insight into both England and France’s history and humour and the complex relationship between the.