Munster in 30 Artworks, No 26: Boy with a Boat, Fitzgerald's Park, Cork 

Joseph Higgins couldn't afford to have his creations burned into full sculptures during his lifetime, but his daughter's marriage to Séamus Murphy helped ensure one of his finest pieces would end up on display

 Boy with a Boat, by Joseph Higgins, at  Fitzgerald's Park, Cork. Picture: Marc O'Sullivan Vallig

Joseph Higgins had the misfortune to be a prodigiously gifted painter and sculptor at a time when there was very little market for Irish art. When he died of tuberculosis at the age of 40 in 1925, he was largely unknown outside of Cork, had never sold a work for more than £35, and had never once secured a formal commission.

He did, however, exhibit regularly at the RHA in Dublin, and won a number of significant prizes, including the highest award of the Annual South Kensington Scheme for Sculpture in 1910. That award was for his sculpture in clay, Boy with a Boat, which was later cast in bronze and installed in the lake in Fitzgerald’s Park.