Whereas the crowd in the middle distance is attentive to Christ who is preaching from a boat on the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5,3), the foreground is filled with a tumultuous fish market scene. Fashionably dressed figures - more appropriate for a Sunday outing than for weekday shopping - stroll among the fishmongers and their almost still-life arrangement of wares, as well as among beggars who receive a few coins and fish waste. The religious content has been ostensibly integrated into everyday life.