Exceptional artist with rise of Queen (4)
I believe the answer is:
rare
'exceptional' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'artist with rise of queen' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'rise of' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'queen' becomes 'er' (abbreviation for Elizabeth Regina).
'er' back-to-front is 're'.
'ra'+'re'='RARE'
(Other definitions for rare that I've seen before include "Not easily come by like undercooked meat" , "Very scarce, hardly cooked" , "Still red inside (as hens' teeth?)" , "Ben Jonson was considered so" , "Occurring infrequently" .)