In 1995, John F. Moffitt, an art historian specializing in painting, published "Art Forgery: The Case of the Lady of Elche", University Press of Florida, in which he contended that the statue was a forgery with similarities to symbolist art of the Belle Époque. He speculated that the identity of the forger and commissioner was "a physician and resident surgeon in the town of Elche" who was "well informed about the current state of Iberian studies" and owned "the fertile archaeological site of La Alcúdia."