On October 6, 1761, the newly widowed Luiza Maria da Conceição witnessed the drafting of an inventory of the estate left by her late husband Manoel João Viana. Born in a northern Portuguese village, Viana had emigrated to Salvador da Bahia. São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, to give its full and proper name, was capital of colonial Brazil between 1549 and 1763, a refreshment and refitting stop (escala) for ships traveling to and from India, port for the sugar plantations of a substantial hinterland, and distribution center for licit and contraband Asian goods throughout the South Atlantic, notably cloth for the massive Angolan slave trade. In that bustling city, Viana married, fathered at least two children, and set up as a comerciante, apparently specializing in fabrics.

Following accepted practice, the inventory itemized and valued the decedent's movable and immovable possessions, both private and professional. Apparel and textiles made up a substantial part of Viana's assets. His own garments included a suit comprising breeches, jacket, and waistcoat of black droguete (a mixed fabric of wool and silk or wool and flax linen), along with a pair of silk stockings, all in good condition; eleven “rather worn” shirts, some of Indian cotton cloth, others of bertanha (a fine linen); four pairs of white linen breeches; and an item whose identity time has effaced from the fading archival page.

Viana's shop stocked an impressive array of textiles. Dozens of pieces of handkerchief material each contained a dozen or more individual kerchiefs that could be used as shawls or scarves, as headwraps, or as nose wipes. Many handkerchiefs were silk, others Indian cotton, some French linen, yet others of unspecified material, but nearly all were colorful: blue, red, light yellow. Of the many lengths of cloth catalogued, nearly a hundred were noted as “pieces” (a few of them 40 meters in length), while dozens more were measured in côvados (0.68 m) and varas (1.1 m); together, they totaled at least 5,000 meters of fabric woven from diverse natural fibers. Cottons included expensive chintz, cheap French ruam, coarse and smooth Indian muslin, and yet other kinds at all price points. Linens, too, ran the gamut from choice dazzling white cambric and Hamburg bertanha through medium-priced French crês and Indian types to rock-bottom rough linhagem and fibery tow (estopa).