Artist overlaid gold for distinctive quality (4)
I believe the answer is:
aura
'distinctive quality' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'artist overlaid gold' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'artist' could be 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts) and 'ra' is located in the answer.
'gold' could be 'au' (Au is the chemical symbol for gold) and 'au' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aura that I've seen before include "'Air, atmosphere (4)'" , "Atmosphere [ital]" , "Halo" , "Atmosphere, quality" , "Indiscernible quality" .)