It is located adjacent to the Church and Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Igreja e Convento de Nossa Senhora do Carmo).

The church is a large complex consisting of a nave, chancel, choir, corridors, tribunes, meeting rooms, and a sacristy.

The interior was richly decorated in the 18th century; the painting of the ceiling of the nave is the first major work by José Teófilo de Jesus.

[4][5][6] Construction of the first church structure began in 1644 with permission from the Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; the land was donated by residents of Salvador.

The master woodcarver Lourenço Rodrigues Lançarote completed extensive work on the church between 1733 and 1734; he later carved the ornate side altars of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Salvador.

[1][6][2][3] The Church of the Third Order of Mount Carmel sits at the top of Ladeira do Carmo, a street leading north from the main squares of the Pelourinho.

[1] The floor plan of Church of the Third Order of Mount Carmel is typical of eighteenth-century Bahian religious architecture.

It is white with talha dourado, or gilded woodwork, and surmounted by a small cartouche with the emblem of the Carmelite order.

The statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the altar is said to be a likeness of Isabel II, daughter of Garcia d'Ávila.

The figurative painting consists of a central image, Virgem entregando o escapulário a Santa Teresa e a Santo Elias, da Ordem Carmelitana, cercada de um Coro de arcanjos ("English: Virgin delivering the scapular to St. Teresa and St. Elias, of the Carmelite Order, surrounded by a Choir of Archangels").

The nave ceiling painting of the Church of the Third Order was the artist's first major commission, and led to similar work at the Convent of Bom Jesus dos Perdões and Chapel of Mercy in 1819.