The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or simply the Met, as most New Yorkers call it, is one of the most famous and richest art museums in the world, next to the British Museum and the Louvre. It is located along 5th Avenue on the eastern edge of Central Park. The museum was founded in 1872 by wealthy benefactors, and today it possesses over 2 million works of art from all over the world. Its collections include ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek and Roman art, medieval European, Byzantine and Islamic art, Asian art, and native American and African art, as well as a rich collection of the old and new masters of European painting. One day is simply not enough to see even a fraction of the inexhaustible collection of the museum: art lovers have to return again and again to the treasures of the Met.