He painted a dancer and extremely old violin, originally (8,2,5)
I believe the answer is:
leonardo da vinci
'he painted' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a dancer and extremely old violin originally' is the wordplay.
'extremely' means to remove the middle letters (only the extremes of the word are used).
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'originally' is an anagram indicator.
'and' with its centre removed is 'ad'.
'dancer'+'ad'+'o'+'violin'='danceradoviolin'
'danceradoviolin' is an anagram of 'LEONARDO DA VINCI'.
(Other definitions for leonardo da vinci that I've seen before include "famous Italian" , "Renowned painter" , "Italian painter" , "artist ..." , "Mona Lisa painter" .)