Scholars have doubts about the authorship of the work , since neither the impastos nor the palette of colours with warm shades of ochre were common in his work. Nor is there any certainty about the identity of the person portrayed because the inscription identifying it is modern. If it were the cleric and ascetic Juan de Ávila, we would be looking at a posthumous portrait, since it would have been impossible for the painter to have met him during his lifetime.