Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich Riefstahl was a German landscape painter and director of the Karlsruhe School of Art.

Wilhelm Riefstahl was born the son of a lacemaker. He moved to Berlin in 1843 to study under the lithographer Gropius and at the same time to take lessons at the Academy of Arts.

The impressions of his first study trip to Rügen had a lasting effect on him and determined him to cultivate the mood in landscape painting. He later traveled to Westphalia, the Rhine, Upper Bavaria and Switzerland. From then on, Riefstahl mainly painted motifs from the high mountains.

In 1843, Riefstahl entered the Berlin Academy, where he joined Wilhelm Schirmer and in 1848 drew the architectural illustrations for Franz Theodor Kugler's art history.

In 1869 he went to Rome and was then appointed professor at the art school in Karlsruhe, a post he resigned from in 1873. However, after spending some time in Rome, he took up the post of director at the same institution in 1875, which he gave up again in 1877 and later moved to Munich.

Wilhelm Riefstahl was married to the pianist Christiane Riefstahl, a daughter of the Neustrelitz teacher at the Höhere Töchterschule, choirmaster and composer Heinrich Riefstahl (1814-1850).