Arthur Kay was a collector and businessman. He married the sister of the artist D. Y. Cameron.
He was a Glasgow collector, especially of Dutch art. A business partner of the textile manufacturer and collector T. G. Arthur, he may have known Whistler in the mid 1890s.
Williams, Julia Lloyd, Smout, T. C. et al, Dutch Art and Scotland : A Reflection of Taste, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1992.