Gerard Edelinck (20 October 1640 – 2 April 1707), was a Flemish copper-plate engraver.
Edelinck was born in Antwerp, where he received his early training from the engraver Cornelis Galle. He then went to Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly. This master likewise had soon done all he could to help him onwards, and Edelinck ultimately took the first rank among line engravers. His excellence was generally acknowledged; and having become known to Louis XIV he was appointed, on the recommendation of Le Brun, teacher at the academy established at the Gobelins manufactory for the training of workers in tapestry. He was also entrusted with the execution of several important works. In 1677 he was admitted member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture), Paris. The work of this great engraver constitutes an epoch in the art. His prints number more than four hundred.
Edelinck stands above and apart from his predecessors and contemporaries in that he excelled, not in some one respect, but in all respects, that while one engraver attained excellence in correct form, and another in rendering light and shade, and others in giving color to their prints and the texture of surfaces, he, as supreme master of the burin, possessed and displayed all these separate qualities, in so complete a harmony that the eye is not attracted by any one of them in particular, but rests in the satisfying whole. Edelinck was the first to break through the custom of making prints square, and to execute them in the lozenge shape.
Edelinck was especially good as an engraver of portraits, and executed prints of many of the most eminent persons of his time. Among these are those of Le Brun, Rigaud, Philippe de Champagne (which the engraver thought his best), Santeuil, La Fontaine, Robert Nanteuil, Colbert, John Dryden, Descartes, etc. He died at Paris in 1707. His younger brother Jean, and his son Nicholas, were also engravers.
Among his most famous works are: