John Lane founded The Bodley Head bookshop and publishers with the Exeter bookseller and antiquarian Charles Elkin Mathews (1851–1921), and was a proud Devonian who collected Devon books and prints. He wrote to Paul Oppé from The Bodley Head on 16 October 1915, mentioning his ownership of a 1798 Bay of Naples by Towne. Given his antiquarian interests in Devon, it is likely that his drawings originated in collections there.