The cooperation and friendship between student and teacher seems to have been very good. In his will, Töhlgren wrote: "Hans Westerholm, for his faithful service, shall have 300 Riksdaler, and my clock, which I have already given to him, everything in my workshop, and everything that is about painting. Then Töhlgren meantioned brushes, colors, tools, pots and other things. Töhlgren's tombstone is outside Jakobstad's church.

Töhlgren had leased an apartment with the family Bremer near the church, lot #101. Hans was also registered there from the beginning of the 1840s, first as pupil, then as worker, and from the 1850s as a painter together with his wife, Brita Katarina. In the church communion books from 1857-1865, Hans was property owner of lot #133 on the corner of Blockmakeregatan street and Lilla Hamngatan street (later Christinegatan) until 1876, when he bought the yellow house on Hamngatan street.

Raul Pohjonen wrote in his book The painters of Österbotten 1750-1900: "Hans Westerholm began to accept his teacher's scale of colors, but never reached the same technical skill as Töhlgren had. He had a certain symmetry in his painting, but flowers are painted more simply, even if more personally. Toward the end of 1800s, Hans mostly painted panes. In the book, there are works of Töhlgren and Hans in color.

Hans Westerholm was the only painter in Jakobstad until 1858, when another master painter arrived, named Österberg, as Österberg was accepte by the townspeople. A new law about industries in 1876 allowed business freedom (competition), which brought more painters into Jakobstad.

The cradle came from Terjärv and the corner cabinet from Kronoby and Hans decorated them. Farmers frequently came to the painter with furniture, carts and sleighs, which they had made themselves, for a painter in town to give them a finish with flowers painted on them. Here we can see the flower decorations from 1858 on the door of a corner cabinet painted in the 1700s. These flowers bring my thoughts back to Dalarna (a county in Sweden), when the "kurbits" painting was popular in this period.

(Photographer Raul Pohjonen, crib and cabinet door)