Yes because praying to a figure of Elrond, an elf from The Lord of the Rings makes no sense, whereas praying to a figurine of Saint Anthony make absolute perfect sense.
Whilst being a non-believer I can see the point of using an image to focus a prayer, if she thought it a saint then it performed that function for her.
that's the thing about Christianity, images like this are purely representational - reminders, so to speak. Pagan religions often fetishise the object itself - that is, it is actually the god, not merely an image. So from a Christian point of view, no problem here.