Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Oesterley (22 June 1805 – 29 March 1891) was a German painter and art historian who was a native of Göttingen. He is remembered largely for creating oil paintings with Biblical themes, and was the father of landscape painter Carl August Heinrich Ferdinand Oesterley (1839-1920).
He studied archaeology, philosophy and history at the University of Göttingen, where in 1824 he earned his doctorate in the field of art history. Subsequently he studied drawing in Dresden, and spent several years in Rome (1824-29). In 1831 he became a professor of art history at Göttingen, where he collaborated with Karl Otfried Müller (1797-1840) on the treatise Denkmäler der alten Kunst (Monuments of Ancient Art).
In 1842 Oesterley became a full professor of art, and in 1844 after finishing the painting Christus and Ahasuerus, he was appointed court painter of the Kingdom of Hanover. Beginning in 1852 he produced numerous altarpieces and other works of art for the church in Rosdorf, in Molzen near Uelzen and in Bad Iburg.