Manuel Ernesto da Conceição (Piracicaba, São Paulo, 1850 - before 1935) was a Brazilian coffee farmer awarded the title of Count of Serra Negra by the Holy See.

He commissioned from the painter a total of twelve canvases depicting the coffee plantations and the life and customs of the Paulistan countryside, in an unprecedented project to create works of art intended to serve as advertising for the Brazilian product.

[2] Decorating this export store was another canvas by Antonio Ferrigno, representing the farm Bom Jardim, to show potential customers where coffee came from.

[7][12] These campaigns would only end with the First World War, in 1914, when the coffee in the port of Le Havre was requisitioned by the French government, forcing the family to return to Brazil shortly thereafter.

The losses of this campaign were enormous, shattering the family fortune, but the Count had no regrets, as he believed that intelligent propaganda abroad would save Brazil from the coffee crisis.

[13] At the end of the 19th century,[note 2] he acquired the farm Villa Victória, in Botucatu, today known as 'Fazenda do Conde de Serra Negra' ("Count of Serra Negra's Farm"), with an area of 1,093 bushels, containing 60,000 coffee trees, twenty-four bushels of sugarcane, two thousand eucalyptus trees, one hundred brick and tile-roofed settlers' houses, a main house, an orchard, self-sustained electricity, coffee, and rice processing machinery, sugarcane grinding mill, and other improvements.

According to the words of O Botucatuense, in an article of the time, "This magnificent musical band, which is competently uniform, is composed exclusively of elements from the important farm Villa Victoria, owned by Mr. Manoel Ernesto da Conceição.

"[17] Around the turn of the century, he bought the Barão do Rio Pardo Palace, on Alameda Ribeiro da Silva, São Paulo, which he later rented to set up a boys' boarding school, Colégio Sílvio Almeida.