Desert a painter has seen when retiring (6)
I believe the answer is:
sahara
'desert' is the definition.
(I know that Sahara is a desert)
'a painter has seen when retiring' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'painter' could be 'ra' (member of the Royal Academy of Arts) and 'ra' is found in the answer.
an anagram of 'has' is 'sha' which is present in the left over letters.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sahara that I've seen before include "Hottest desert" , "World's largest desert" , "World's largest sandy area" , "Uncultivated region of north Africa" , "About 3,500,000 square miles of Africa" .)