He gave a perfect ending to a clever piece of painting (6)
I believe the answer is:
titian
'painting' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'he gave a perfect ending to a clever piece' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'he' could be 'ian' and 'ian' is present in the answer.
'piece' could be 'tit' (tit is a kind of piece) and 'tit' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for titian that I've seen before include "Italian Old Master and hair-colour" , "Sixteenth century Venetian painter" , "(Of hair) bright golden auburn; painter" , "artist from Venice" , "Italian Old Master and colour" .)