Agesander was one, or more likely, several Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes, working in the first centuries BC and AD, in a late Hellenistic "baroque" style. If there was more than one sculptor called Agesander they were very likely related to each other. The very important works of the groups of Laocoön and His Sons, in the Vatican Museums, and the sculptures discovered at Sperlonga are both signed by three sculptors including an Agesander.

Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BC, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BC with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It follows the period of Classical Greek art, while the succeeding Greco-Roman art was very largely a continuation of Hellenistic trends.