Although Manet's depiction of the hunting trophy in this painting is "extremely picturesque-«impressionistic»", he clearly shows the different feathering of the individual parts of the body.

To the left of the bird, the grain of the wooden wall can also be clearly seen, while the area to the right of the body is partially covered by the animal's wings and behind it a kind of shadow effect is painted.

Both the positioning of the eagle owl in the upper part of the picture and the vertical format of the painting reinforce the impression that the animal is hanging up.

Due to the lack of any spatial surroundings, the picture can be assigned to the trompe-l'oeil painting that has been popular with still lifes since Jacopo de' Barbari.

While the owl is mainly created in short brush strokes and dabs of color, the horizontal wooden boards are rendered by an elongated brushwork whose wave-like movement underlines the wood grain.