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The subject of the painting is taken from the Gospel of St John, (XXI, 6–10); the figures enacting it are typically set in an immense vista, dwarfed by the towering, fantastical bluffs and buildings above and beyond them. In the foreground on the edge of Lake Galilee, Christ appears to his disciples for the third time following his resurrection. St Peter is seen trying to reach Him across the waves, while to the right the figures appear again in a slightly later episode gathering to grill the fish they have just miraculously caught. The remarkable eagle-shaped overhang in the rocks may be intended as a symbol of the Evangelist and thus refers to de Bles's biblical source. Upon it may be spied a small owl sitting in a cleft, a pun on the painter's nickname (civetta in Italian) and his frequent form of signature.
The panel is signed on the rocky bluff with the artist's device of an owl, and inscribed on an old label affixed to the reverse: Del Civetta.
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