He is known especially for paintings of shelves filled with books, a subject he painted more than a hundred times. In 1985, John Ashbery wrote that Marsans' works "suggest nineteenth-century American trompe-l'œil painting.
The passage describes Marsans' paintings, specifically his frequent depiction of shelves laden with books, and how this style was compared to nineteenth-century American trompe-l'œil painting by John Ashbery in 1985.