She’d come so far to deliver the key and now it all seemed for nothing as the three who entered the clearing were all clearly crones.

This site has amazing examples from the golden age of illustration - some pulp covers, some comics, and some book plates.

The original site (The Golden Age on Blogspot) is gone, so the picture now links to the wikipedia article for John Bauer. More example sof his work are available at Art Passions.

via nevver.

Background: Master Key by Žarko Drinčić .