Develops without one nickel for paintings (10)
I believe the answer is:
miniatures
'paintings' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'develops without one nickel' is the wordplay.
'develops' becomes 'matures' (maturing is a kind of developing).
'without' means one lot of letters goes inside another ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'nickel' becomes 'Ni' (Ni is the chemical symbol for nickel).
'i'+'ni'='ini'
'matures' enclosing 'ini' is 'MINIATURES'.
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for miniatures that I've seen is " small spirit bottles".)