Scott Kessler, a 39-year-old equity analyst for Standard & Poor's, took a train down to Philadelphia from New York yesterday, but he didn't have tickets to see the Giants at Lincoln Financial Field or the Yankees at Citizens Bank Park.

The 11-year Wall Street veteran's destination was Freeman's auction house in Center City, where a standing-room-only crowd of art lovers, buyers, and voyeurs spilled out into the foyer. Hands darted into the air and the auctioneer rattled off growing prices.

The works up for bid would not have seemed attainable before last year: paintings and prints that once lined the offices of the failed Wall Street giant Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in September 2008.

"You can get a piece of history," Kessler said.

The 283 pieces available yesterday had a total presale valuation of $500,000 to $750,000 and included a wide swath of modern and contemporary art, from 1930s Works Progress Administration images by Louis Lozowick to the pop-art stylings of Roy Lichtenstein.

Anne Henry, vice president of modern and contemporary art at Freeman's, said the art came primarily from Lehman's New York offices, but selections from Boston and Delaware also were included. She said the response to the auction was "overwhelming."

"The name has certainly brought us all kinds of attention that I don't think we'd normally get," she said.

Most of the pieces available were by American or European artists, but in the last decade the firm had bolstered its international collection, picking up pieces from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, she said.

Many milling about were at their first auction, having been enticed by affordable catalog prices that were quickly turned irrelevant as phone and Internet bids from every state and 33 countries came pouring in.

"I've never seen it like this," Kay Davidoff, a designer from Narberth who has been to Freeman's dozens of times, said of the scene inside the auction house.

Henry said the fact that nearly all the works were exceeding their high-end list price - in many cases several times over - was "certainly unusual."

"I just think it's a symptom of the unprecedented interest," she said. "It's really been an extraordinary day for us."

Kimberly MacLeod, spokeswoman for Lehman Bros., said the company was thrilled with the venue and the bids, which will go toward paying Lehman's creditors. She said the company chose to auction at Freeman's because it avoided competition with New York auction houses and was an easy day trip for those outside Philadelphia. Freeman's is set to host two more auctions of Lehman's collection on Dec. 6 and Feb. 12.

Chris Foulds, a 31-year-old attorney who lives in Pennsport, had hoped to make a run at a couple of pieces depicting scenes from the trading floor of the stock market, but said he doubted he would have a chance given the "irony premium."

An auction newbie, he came because of the Lehman connection.

"Their philosophy was to buy distressed assets," he said. "So that's what I'd be doing."

Kessler had also never been to an art auction, but an "iconic firm name" and a love of New York-themed art brought him to Philadelphia.

"I think this is largely significant for people interested in New York and Wall Street," he said.

The first piece sold, a 1945 rendering of the Brooklyn Bridge by Georges Schreiber that once adorned the 31st-floor executive boardroom of Lehman's Seventh Avenue office in New York, went for $16,000, more than doubling the list price of $4,000 to $6,000.

Davidoff was bidding for her son, who works for a hedge fund.

"He told me to stay away from anything that has to do with New York," she said. "He predicted well."

Alex Cohen, a 29-year-old painter who shows his work in Old City, said the artists in the auction had likely never envisioned that the sale of their art would come to represent the beginning of an economic meltdown.

"I hope my paintings aren't synonymous with the downfall of a major bank," he said with a laugh.

Jane Karns, who lives in the Spring Garden area with her husband, Greg, had come with hopes of winning a 1979 Joe Tilson color etching and collage on handmade paper. She never got to bid, however, because she said the auctioneer started at $1,500, well above the $500-to-$800 list price.

"It'd be nice to have a piece of what the big guys had," she said.

Contact staff writer Matthew Spolar at 856-779-3829 or mspolar@phillynews.com.